Chess is a recreational and competitive game played between two players. Sometimes called Western chess or international chess to distinguish it from its predecessors and other chess variants, the current form of the game emerged in Southern Europe during the second half of the 15th century after evolving from similar, much older games of Indian and Persian origin.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a>
Contemporary chess is an organized sport with structured international and national leagues, tournaments and congresses.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a>
The most important mathematical challenge of chess is the development of algorithms which can play chess.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a>
In the Middle Ages and during the Renaissance, chess was a part of noble culture; it was used to teach war strategy and was dubbed the " King's Game ".<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a>
Today, chess is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide in clubs, online, by correspondence, in tournaments and informally.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a>
The international rules of chess are described in more detail in the FIDE Handbook, section Laws of Chess.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a>
Many combinatorical and topological problems connected to chess were known of for hundreds of years. In 1913, Ernst Zermelo used it as a basis for his theory of game strategies, which is considered as one of the predecessors of game theory.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a>

Chess variants are forms of chess where the game is played with a different board, special fairy pieces or different rules.<a href="#hdng0">(More...)</a>

Whether serious with your chess or just looking for the occasional game, whether looking for another player or eager to challenge a strong computer, whether you like a blitz chess or you are fond of one of the many variants, here you can play chess over the internet for free.<a href="#hdng1">(More...)</a>

<a name="hdng0"></a>Chess variants are forms of chess where the game is played with a different board, special fairy pieces or different rules. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> Chess is a recreational and competitive game played between two players. Sometimes called Western chess or international chess to distinguish it from its predecessors and other chess variants, the current form of the game emerged in Southern Europe during the second half of the 15th century after evolving from similar, much older games of Indian and Persian origin.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> Besides casual games without exact timing, chess is also played with a time control, mostly by club and professional players.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> Before FIDE will confer the title on a player, the player must have an Elo chess rating (see below) of at least 2500 at one time and three favorable results (called norms) in tournaments involving other Grandmasters, including some from countries other than the applicant's. There are also other milestones a player can achieve to attain the title, such as winning the World Junior Championship.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> It took a prodigy from Cuba, Jos" Ra"l Capablanca (World champion 1921"27), who loved simple positions and endgames, to end the German-speaking dominance in chess; he was undefeated in tournament play for eight years until 1924. His successor was Russian-French Alexander Alekhine, a strong attacking player, who died as the World champion in 1946, having briefly lost the title to Dutch player Max Euwe in 1935 and regaining it two years later.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> The 37th Chess Olympiad was held 2006 in Turin, Italy ; Armenia won the gold in the unrestricted event, and Ukraine took the top medal for the women. The World Chess Solving Championship and World Correspondence Chess Championships are both team and individual events. Besides these prestigious competitions, there are thousands of other chess tournaments, matches and festivals held around the world every year, which cater to players of all levels, from beginners to experts.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> Since the end of 19th century, the number of annually held master tournaments and matches quickly grew. Some sources state that in 1914 the title of chess grandmaster was first formally conferred by Tsar Nicholas II of Russia to Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Tarrasch and Marshall, but this is a disputed claim. This tradition was continued by the World Chess Federation ( FIDE ), founded in 1924 in Paris.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> Karpov's reign finally ended in 1985 at the hands of another Russian player, Garry Kasparov. Kasparov and Karpov contested five world title matches between 1984 and 1990; Karpov never won his title back. In 1993, Garry Kasparov and Nigel Short broke with FIDE to organize their own match for the title and formed a competing Professional Chess Association (PCA).<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> With huge databases of past games and high analytical ability, computers also help players to learn chess and prepare for matches.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> In chess, tactics in general concentrate on short-term actions " so short-term that they can be calculated in advance by a human player or by a computer.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> Chess games do not have to end in checkmate " either player may resign if the situation looks hopeless.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> De Groot also showed that chess masters can memorize positions shown for a few seconds almost perfectly. Memorization ability alone does not account for this skill, since masters and novices, when faced with random arrangements of chess pieces, had equivalent recall (about half a dozen positions in each case). It is the ability to recognize patterns, which are then memorized, which distinguished the skilled players from the novices.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> Alfred Binet and others showed that knowledge and verbal, rather than visuospatial, ability lies at the core of expertise. Adriaan de Groot, in his doctoral thesis, showed that chess masters can rapidly perceive the key features of a position. According to de Groot, this perception, made possible by years of practice and study, is more important than the sheer ability to anticipate moves.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> Pawns being the least mobile of the chess pieces, the pawn structure is relatively static and largely determines the strategic nature of the position. Weaknesses in the pawn structure, such as isolated, doubled or backward pawns and holes, once created, are usually permanent. Care must therefore be taken to avoid them unless they are compensated by another valuable asset (for example, by the possibility to develop an attack).<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a>

Traditional national or regional chess variants like xiangqi, shogi, janggi and makruk, which share common predecessors with Western chess. Modern variants of chess, such as Chess960, where the initial position is selected randomly before each game. This random positioning makes it almost impossible to prepare the opening play in advance.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> Chess is often depicted in the arts ; significant works, where chess plays a key role, range from Thomas Middleton's A Game at Chess over Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll to The Royal Game by Stefan Zweig or Vladimir Nabokov's The Defense.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> A chess opening is the group of initial moves of a game (the "opening moves"). Recognized sequences of opening moves are referred to as openings and have been given names such as the Ruy Lopez or Sicilian Defense. They are catalogued in reference works such as the Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> Today, chess is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide in clubs, online, by correspondence, in tournaments and informally.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> There were correspondence matches between cities; for example the London Chess Club played against the Edinburgh Chess Club in 1824.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> The two most important French masters were Fran"ois-Andr" Danican Philidor, a musician by profession, who discovered the importance of pawns for chess strategy, and later Louis-Charles Mah" de La Bourdonnais who won a famous series of matches with the British master Alexander McDonnell in 1834. Centers of chess life in this period were coffee houses in big European cities like Caf" de la R"gence in Paris and Simpson's Divan in London.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> Chess is also important in films like Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal or Satyajit Ray's The Chess Players.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> More recent research indicates that factors other than practice are important. Gobet and colleagues have shown that stronger players start playing chess earlier, that they are more likely to be left-handed, and that they are more likely to be born in late winter and early spring.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> One of the goals of early computer scientists was to create a chess-playing machine, and today's chess is deeply influenced by the abilities of current chess programs and by the possibility to play online.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> Chess strategy is concerned with evaluation of chess positions and with setting up goals and long-term plans for the future play.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> Almost all studies are endgame positions. Chess composition is a distinct branch of chess sport, and tournaments (or tourneys ) exist for both the composition and solving of chess problems.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> "The Game of Chess is not merely an idle amusement; several very valuable qualities of the mind, useful in the course of human life, are to be acquired and strengthened by it, so as to become habits ready on all occasions; for life is a kind of Chess, in which we have often points to gain, and competitors or adversaries to contend with, and in which there is a vast variety of good and ill events, that are, in some degree, the effect of prudence, or the want of it.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> Arpad Elo thought of a player's true skill as the average of that player's performance random variable, and showed how to estimate the average from results of player's games. The U.S. Chess Federation implemented Elo's suggestions in 1960, and the system quickly gained recognition as being both fairer and more accurate than older systems; it was adopted by FIDE in 1970.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> Many schools hold chess clubs and there are many scholastic tournaments specifically for children. Many countries have chess federations, such as the United States Chess Federation, that hold tournaments regularly in addition to FIDE.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> The international rules of chess are described in more detail in the FIDE Handbook, section Laws of Chess.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> Different chess pieces were used as metaphors for different classes of people, and human duties were derived from the rules of the game or from visual properties of the chess pieces.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> Many combinatorical and topological problems connected to chess were known of for hundreds of years. In 1913, Ernst Zermelo used it as a basis for his theory of game strategies, which is considered as one of the predecessors of game theory.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> In the Middle Ages and during the Renaissance, chess was a part of noble culture; it was used to teach war strategy and was dubbed the " King's Game ".<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> Introduced into the Iberian Peninsula by the Moors in the 10th century, it was described in a famous 13th century manuscript covering shatranj, backgammon, and dice named the Libro de los juegos. Another theory, championed by David H. Li, contends that chess arose from the game xiangqi, or at least a predecessor thereof, existing in China since the 2nd century BC.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> A forced variant which is connected with a sacrifice and usually results in a tangible gain is named a combination. Brilliant combinations " such as those in the Immortal game " are described as beautiful and are admired by chess lovers.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> Sparkling games like Anderssen's Immortal game or Morphy's Opera game were regarded as the highest possible summit of the chess art.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> Beautiful chess sets used by the aristocracy of the time are mostly lost, but some of the surviving examples, like the twelfth century Lewis chessmen, are of high artistic quality.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> Between the world wars, chess was revolutionized by the new theoretical school of so-called hypermodernists like Aron Nimzowitsch and Richard R"ti. They advocated controlling the center of the board with distant pieces rather than with pawns, inviting opponents to occupy the center with pawns which become objects of attack.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. Chess originated in India, where its early form in the 6th century was chaturanga, which translates as "four divisions of the military" " infantry, cavalry, elephants, and chariots, represented respectively by pawn, knight, bishop, and rook.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> Chess problems became a regular part of nineteenth century newspapers; Bernhard Horwitz, Josef Kling and Samuel Loyd composed some of the most influential problems. In 1843, von der Lasa published his and Bilguer's Handbuch des Schachspiels ( Handbook of Chess ), the first comprehensive manual of chess theory.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> There is a theme (or combination of themes) that the problem has been composed to illustrate: chess problems typically instantiate particular ideas. Many of these themes have their own names, often by persons who used them first, for example Novotny or Lacny theme. The problem exhibits economy in its construction: no greater force is employed than that required to guarantee that the problem's intended solution is indeed a solution and that it is the problem's only solution.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> At first considered only a curiosity, the best chess playing programs, for example Rybka or Hydra, have become extremely strong.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) held the first major chess tournament for computers, the North American Computer Chess Championship, in September 1970.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> The first modern chess tournament was held in London in 1851 and won, surprisingly, by German Adolf Anderssen, relatively unknown at the time.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> Even shorter is blitz chess with a time control of three to fifteen minutes for each player and bullet chess (under three minutes).<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> Apart from World Champion, Grandmaster is the highest title a chess player can attain.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> Grandmaster (shortened as GM, sometimes International Grandmaster or IGM is used) is awarded to world-class chess masters.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> Contemporary chess is an organized sport with structured international and national leagues, tournaments and congresses.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> The winner of the 1948 tournament, Russian Mikhail Botvinnik, started an era of Soviet dominance in the chess world.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> One of the most famous chess studies ever. It seems impossible to catch the advanced black pawn, while the black king can easily stop the white pawn. The solution is diagonal advance, bringing the king to both pawns at the same time: 1.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> Anderssen was hailed as the leading chess master and his brilliant, energetic " but from today's viewpoint strategically shallow " attacking style became typical for the time.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> More recent research has focused on the respective roles of knowledge and look-ahead search ; brain imaging studies of chess masters and novices; blindfold chess ; the role of personality and intelligence in chess skill, gender differences, and computational models of chess expertise.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> Internet Chess Servers allow people to find and play opponents all over the world.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter plays " Wizard's Chess " while the characters of Star Trek prefer " Tri-Dimensional Chess " and the hero of Searching for Bobby Fischer struggles against adopting the aggressive and misanthropic views of a real chess Grandmaster.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a>

Chess is played on a square board of eight rows (called ranks and denoted with numbers 1 to 8 ) and eight columns (called files and denoted with letters a to h ) of squares.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> The number of legal positions in chess is estimated to be between 10 43 and 10 50, with a game-tree complexity of approximately 10 123.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> The game-tree complexity of chess was first calculated by Claude Shannon as 10 120, a number known as the Shannon number.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> The idea of creating a chess playing machine dates to the eighteenth century; around 1769, the chess playing automaton called The Turk became famous before being exposed as a hoax. Serious trials based on automatons, such as El Ajedrecista, were too complex and limited to be useful.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> The tradition of organized competitive chess started in the sixteenth century and has developed extensively.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> In the eighteenth century the center of European chess life moved from the Southern European countries to France.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> Regular team chess events include the aforementioned Chess Olympiad and the European Team Championship.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> CHESS 3.0, a chess program from Northwestern University, won the championship.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> Chess games and positions are recorded using a special notation, most often algebraic chess notation.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> The timing ranges from long games played up to seven hours to shorter rapid chess games lasting usually 30 minutes or one hour per game.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> The oldest preserved printed chess book, Repetici"n de Amores y Arte de Ajedrez ( Repetition of Love and the Art of Playing Chess ) by Spanish churchman Luis Ramirez de Lucena was published in Salamanca in 1497.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> Chess has also been used as the core theme of a musical, Chess, by Tim Rice, Bj"rn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> With these or similar hopes, chess is taught to children in schools around the world today and used in armies to train minds of cadets and officers.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> Ericsson and colleagues have argued that deliberate practice is sufficient for reaching high levels of expertise, like master in chess.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> Since the advent of the digital computer in the 1950s, chess enthusiasts and computer engineers have built, with increasing degrees of seriousness and success, chess-playing machines and computer programs.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> Chess composition is the art of creating chess problems (these problems themselves are sometimes also called chess compositions). A person who creates such problems is known as a chess composer.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> There are more than two thousand published chess variants, the most popular being xiangqi in China and shogi in Japan.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a>

National chess organizations may also award titles, usually to the advanced players still under the level needed for international titles; an example is the Chess expert title used in the United States.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> International titles are awarded to composers and solvers of chess problems, and to correspondence chess players (by the International Correspondence Chess Federation).<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> Chess's international governing body is FIDE (F"d"ration Internationale des "checs). Most countries have a national chess organization as well (such as the U.S. Chess Federation and English Chess Federation ), which in turn is a member of FIDE. FIDE is a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), but the game of chess has never been part of the Olympic Games ; chess does have its own Olympiad, held every two years as a team event.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> In order to rank players, FIDE, ICCF and national chess organizations use the Elo rating system developed by Arpad Elo. Elo is a statistical system based on assumption that the chess performance of each player in their games is a random variable.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a>

The FIDE World Chess Championship 2006 reunified the titles, when Kramnik beat the FIDE World Champion Veselin Topalov and became the undisputed World Chess Champion.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> Chess today is a recognized sport of the International Olympic Committee. The first official World Chess Champion, Wilhelm Steinitz, claimed his title in 1886; Viswanathan Anand is the current World Champion.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a>

In 1927, Women's World Chess Championship was established; the first to hold it was Czech - English master Vera Menchik.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a>

An estimated 605 million people worldwide know how to play chess, and 7.5 million are members of national chess federations, which exist in 160 countries worldwide. This makes chess one of the most popular sports worldwide.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a> The most important mathematical challenge of chess is the development of algorithms which can play chess.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a>

An example is Liber de moribus hominum et officiis nobilium sive super ludo scacchorum ('Book of the customs of men and the duties of nobles or the Book of Chess'), written by an Italian Dominican monk Jacobus de Cessolis circa 1300.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess" TARGET="_blank" [1]</a>

<a name="hdng1"></a>Whether serious with your chess or just looking for the occasional game, whether looking for another player or eager to challenge a strong computer, whether you like a blitz chess or you are fond of one of the many variants, here you can play chess over the internet for free. <a href="http://www.freechess.org/" TARGET="_blank" [2]</a> Unfortunately, when we study chess we do so from game scores rather than from pictures of the board. Be4 draws our eyes to the bishop. Our eyes should be drawn to e4! When a young player"s hand hovers over a piece, I know he has not yet seen the board. Students resist this discipline. They believe that they already see everything. They also believe that it takes too much time during the game.<a href="http://www.chessmaniac.com/" TARGET="_blank" [3]</a> ChessManiac.com is a free online chess playing community where you can play chess online, participate in tournaments, teams, chess clubs and more.<a href="http://www.chessmaniac.com/" TARGET="_blank" [3]</a>

Chess.net members enjoy the benefits of the BEST chess client on the internet, planned tournaments, and all levels of play from beginners to Grandmasters.<a href="http://www.chess.net/" TARGET="_blank" [4]</a> No annoying banner ads! The Chess Net graphical interface enables you to play, watch and examine games online.<a href="http://www.chess.net/" TARGET="_blank" [4]</a> From World Champion Anatoly Karpov to International Grandmasters, world class chess games are here for you to view.<a href="http://www.chess.net/" TARGET="_blank" [4]</a>

The BEST place to play Chess on the web and to chat and meet new friends from around the world.<a href="http://www.chess.net/" TARGET="_blank" [4]</a>

Want to learn how to play chess? Want to learn how to play a bit better? Here are some fairly easy "lessons." Those relatively new to chess should play though the introduction to chess and the section on chess strategy just below.<a href="http://www.princeton.edu/~jedwards/cif/chess.html" TARGET="_blank" [5]</a>